The proper role and use of copyright is one of the great, unresolved arguments of the internet era. Many net activists believe that copyright laws in the US have become an impediment to creativity and innovation in a world of file-sharing and remixing, and that the entertainment industry in particular is hurting both itself and its customers by trying to keep tight control over its products.

Should producers of TV shows allow people to upload clips to YouTube, in the belief that it's all free publicity? Should publishers allow services like Google News and Google Print unfettered access to their material, and should Google have to ask permission beforehand (and if not, should publishers follow the example of several Belgian colleagues and sue for its removal)? Should record companies encourage, or at least tolerate, a certain amount of online copying? And who gets hurt when material is pirated – the artists, or only the media conglomerates?

I got an interesting new perspective on these questions recently as the result of the tragic death of California man named Jonathan Comras, the younger brother of a very close friend of mine. Comras, among many other things, was a passionate music fan and a prolific producer of bootleg CDs, which he sold for a profit. Many of his products skirted the law – but they were also unique, in that he specialised in live recordings that were available nowhere else, and a lot of artists considered him an ally.

Indeed, after Jon died, the Counting Crows keyboardist and lyricist Adam Duritz wrote a loving – and fascinating – tribute on the band's website.

"My friend Jonny Comras was an outlaw," Duritz wrote. "He loved bootleg rock'n'roll music. He loved to listen to them. He loved to make 'em. He loved to... well, I'm not gonna lie and say it was all legal 24/7 but he loved to spread the music around. I learned more about music history and the great live performance history of rock 'n' roll from Jonny and Immy than from anyone else in my life…."

"Maybe you think I'm a hypocrite because I think the guys who started Napster were scumbags and I think Jonny was a hero. But Jonny had respect for the music and the musicians...Those other guys despised musicians and they just decided to take what they could take. I'll never forget how they treated Lars Ullrich [of Metallica] when he had the courage to stand up and call them out for the thieving little businessmen they were. Jonny wasn't that kind of guy. Lars would've dug Jonny."

The distinction that Duritz makes is a tricky one, to say the least. There are pirates who are in it for the money, who are bad, and there are pirates who are in it for the love of the music, which is good, even if they are also making money. It's hard to imagine a law that could implement such a principle.

But I think Duritz puts his finger on something critical, which is respect. Internet evangelists in general often seem to take the view that if intellectual property owners like book publishers or record companies are too stupid to see the benefits that new web-based business models can bring, well, we're going to show them anyway. Thus Google began copying books and requiring publishers to opt out of Google Print (the company has since pulled back from that), rather than asking them if they wanted in.

Similarly, Napster's defenders, and there were many, focused on the greed and shortsightedness of the record companies, and blithely put any artists who complained in the same category. The simple fact that Napster was indeed a service designed to facilitate illegal copying and distribution of music (and succeeded quite well until it was shut down by the courts) was generally ignored.

A similar argument now rages around YouTube. The net cognoscenti smugly dismiss complaining TV networks as clueless Neanderthals, while barely acknowledging the very obvious – and ethically compelling – notion that those who create and own the TV shows should be able to decide how and where they are distributed. Old media executives may indeed be idiots, but it's certainly possible that allowing things to circulate free for the PR value is not always a good strategy – and in any case it seems rather arrogant to say that the owners of the programs shouldn't even have the right to make that decision.

Respect is a hard thing to codify into law, but it's certainly something that can be a part of day-to-day business practices. At NewWest.Net, for example, we try to stay on the right side of the many grey areas of law regarding fair use when it comes to linking and aggregation and the like. We err in favor of asking permission, though not necessarily in the surprising number of situations where a wink and a nod seem to be standard practice.

Indeed, a wink and a nod seems to have been part of Jon Comras' business relationships – Duritz of the Counting Crows even makes mention of the Crows bootlegs that Comras was probably selling. But it's the sprit of the relationship – the respect – that is crucial. It's a naïve and problematic guiding principle, of course, but maybe better than the categorical alternatives.

Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a new type of regional news and information service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard

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